God Speaking

“That creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21)

A little girl asked her mother, “Why is it called Good Friday when it was the day Jesus died, it sounds like a bad day to me?” The little girl is not alone in asking that question and a visit to the internet will find pages on the same question. There is a lot of theological discussion to be found as to when the day was given that name and various derivations for the word “good”, but I found one site which had asked the general public to contribute their thoughts about what was good about this momentous day in history. It was a beautiful rewarding time for me to read about the goodness people saw in the act of Jesus giving up his life for us.

Perhaps the foremost reason people saw goodness in this day, was the incredible realization for all of us that reconciliation between us and God had been brought about by our Saviour.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)

Freedom was the next most common theme running through the comments. No longer shackled by sin, on this day of goodness we have been set free.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

Over and over again people wrote of this day as one of victory. Goodness had triumphed over evil. Death had been defeated. Eternal life had been granted to all believers.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The list went on and on of people who could see goodness pervading this day ; the display of the incredible unconditional love of our Saviour who even though he was suffering horrendous pain could look lovingly at sinners and whisper to his Father,

“Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing…”” (Luke 23:34)

Good Friday is a somber day and one in which we spend much time remembering the agony that our precious Saviour endured for us. A time for us to reflect on the huge price Jesus Christ paid to set us free. A time to examine ourselves and to remember that although we are unworthy Jesus considered us worthy enough to die for. At the same time remembering the goodness that flowed through his mighty action on that day, makes us fall at his feet in deep gratitude as unworthy recipients of his grace and when we spend some time finding what the goodness of that day means to us personally, we grasp a deeper meaning for

“Good Friday.”